Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade comes off another strong season in which it confirmed its status as the team to beat in all of its domestic competitions and was competitive in the 7DAYS EuroCup. Zvezda put together a deep team led by Joe Ragland, Billy Baron, Stratos Perperoglou and Maik Zirbes. Zvezda enjoyed a good start to the EuroCup season and won four of its first five regular-season games to reach the Top 16 without any problems. It finished this stage with big wins against Germani Brescia Leonessa and Galatasaray Istanbul to rank third overall with a 6-4 record. Zvezda started the Top 16 with an 83-71 home win over Limoges CSP behind 13 points from Baron, but four consecutive losses - two of them against eventual champion Valencia Basket - prevented the team from reaching the playoffs. Zvezda went on to win the Adriatic League after finishing the regular season with a 21-1 record and downing Partizan NIS Belgrade and Buducnost VOLI Podgorica to recapture the title. As expected, Partizan was its main opponent in Serbian competitions. Partizan prevailed in the Serbian Radivoj Korac Cup final, 76-74, but Zvezda had the final word, winning the Serbian League title for the fifth consecutive season. Zvezda returns to the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague this season eager for more big challenges.

Crvena Zvezda, which translates as Red Star, was among the most-crowned teams in the former Yugoslavia. The club was founded in 1945 and already a year later started its domination by winning the first of its 10 straight titles. Zvezda continued winning trophies in bunches in the early 1970s when it claimed a national championship, three domestic cups and the 1974 Saporta Cup – its lone European trophy to date – all in a span of five years. The next two decades were not as fruitful. Zvezda had to wait until 1993 to win another Yugoslav crown, but it repeated the success twice more in the 1990s. Over the years Zvezda had the privilege of being guided by some of Europe's coaching greats – including Aleksandar Nikolic, Ranko Zeravica and Svetislav Pesic, and developed some of Europe's finest talents, such as Zoran Slavnic, Dejan Tomasevic, Igor Rakocevic, Nemanja Bjelica and Predrag Stojakovic. A return to winning at the continental level came in 2006 and 2007 when Milan Gurovic led Zvezda to the ULEB Cup quarterfinals, where it lost against eventual champions Dynamo Moscow and Real Madrid. In 2013, Zvezda won its first of three consecutive Serbian Cups and it made its Turkish Airlines EuroLeague debut the next season. Even though a 4-6 regular season record was not enough to advance from a tough group with eventual champion Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv, Zvezda continued its journey in the EuroCup and reached the semifinals, where it lost a two-game series against UNICS Kazan. The club returned to compete against Europe's elite and lived through some of the proudest moments in its 70-year old history. Led by big man Boban Marjanovic, in 2014-15 Zvezda reached the EuroLeague Top 16 for the first time and won its first triple-crown, lifting trophies in all three other competitions it entered that season – the Adriatic League, Serbian League and Serbian Cup. The following season, Zvezda went a step further in the EuroLeague, reaching the playoffs, and putting up a great fight despite being ousted in three games by eventual champion CSKA Moscow. Zvezda went on to win both the Adriatic League and its second straight Serbian League title. In the 2016-17 season, Zvezda came just short of another EuroLeague playoff appearance, losing a do-or-die Round 30 game against Darussafaka Istanbul, but won another domestic triple crown. Zvezda has continued winning Serbian League titles - five in a row, and counting - but had an 11-19 record in the 2017-18 EuroLeague and did not get out of the EuroCup Top 16 last season. Zvezda has all it takes - management, fans, tradition and competitiveness - to be a tough opponent for everyone in all competitions this year.